This invention relates to creels for use with textile machinery such as tufting machines, warping machines or the like, and particularly to a creel wherein a group of a plurality of yarn strands are received from a like number of yarn cones and are fed through a single yarn guide tube to the textile machinery.
In textile machines, such as tufting machines, yarn is fed to the machine either directly from a creel or from a warper. A creel is a frame having an array of vertical and horizontal support members and including a multiplicity of yarn cone holders. A yarn cone is a spool about which yarn is wound. There are a multiplicity of yarn cone holders provided in horizontally and vertically disposed pairs, one cone holder of the pair mounting the active yarn cone and the other mounting a reserve or magazine cone used after the active cone is emptied. Each cone holder pair has its own yarn guide tube through which yarn on each holder of the pair may be fed. A warper is a machine having a large spool, known in the art as a beam, on which yarn is wound and which subsequently supplies the yarn to a tufting machine.
In the art of tufting, generally a single strand of yarn is fed to each needle. However, there are some occasions when it may be desirable to feed a plurality of fine yarn strands to each needle for providing tufted fabrics having unique patterns. Presently, when such need arises, in order to supply more than one yarn strand to a needle of a tufting machine, the yarn strands are cabled together onto a single yarn cone, or the reserve or magazine position is also used for mounting an active cone. Cabling involves winding the plural yarns onto a single yarn cone, but yarn manufacturers merchandise yarn cones with but a single yarn thereon. Thus, cabling requires unwinding the yarns from several cones and rewinding the yarns as a group onto multi-yarn cones. Cabling is therefore inconvenient and time consuming. Magazining, on the other hand, limits to two the number of yarn strands capable of being used and thus limits the pattern potential.